A very interesting article. Most Americans like to think of us Americans as the “good guys” and whoever is perceived to not agree with us as the “bad guys”. Also, most Americans do not know much history…is it any wonder considering the quality of our education system today? Many if not most Americans are quite smug in our arrogance toward the rest of the World. The current administration seems to think it has the God given right to tell every other country on Earth what to do and how to do it. We lecture other nations on their behavior thinking we have a right to do so. Well we don’t. America is not just the land of Paul Bunyon, Pecos Pete and Johnny Appleseed. Our recent history has some very shameful but not well known (at least by the American people) deeds. Mentioned here are just a few.
In 1953 the CIA along with the British government engineered the overthrow of the “democratically elected government of Iran.” Dr. Mossedeigh was the elected leader by the Iranian people. He was TIME magazines Man of the Year. He also thought that Iran’s oil should belong to the Iranian people instead of British Petroleum so he nationalized it. The British appealed to the CIA and with their help under John Foster Dulles the Shah was imposed on the people of Iran. He was a brutal dictator who gave control of the oil back to Western interests. Dr. Mossedeigh was placed under house arrest until his death. The Shah brutalized the people of Iran and it took 26 years to get rid of him. Is it any wonder the Iranians call us the “Great Satan”.
Then in 1970 Henry Kissinger was instructed by President Nixon to engineer the overthrow of the elected leader of Chile, Salvador Allende.
This was accompolished in Sept. 1973 with the shooting death of Allende and and a brutal dictator was imposed on Chile..Augusto Pinochet. Wonder of wonders, the copper in Chile was back under American control.
Then again…in 1974 Henry Kissinger completed a study…”The National Security Study Memorandum 200″…This is truly chilling reading. It called for allowing the poorer third World countries, primarily in Africa, to suffer population loss through war, famine and disease. The goal was to make it easier to take the natural resourses from these countries. It would be so much easier if they had no population to put up a fight. Talk about a crime of unimaginable proportions!
Makes you wonder just where does Ebola fever come from anyway. It kills without mercy very rapidly and no one seems to know where or how it gets going. What a way to wipe out an unwanted population.
Then of course we have the horrific two centuries or so of slavery. This country took the native Africans, deprived them of liberty, hope and dignity and treated them like beasts of burden. And, let us not forget for a moment the fate of the Native Americans who were subjected to a real holocaust. They were slaughtered for their land without mercy.
Today America has invaded Iraq. Only a complete fool would think it was to eliminate “weapons of mass destruction” or “to give them democracy”..IT WAS FOR THEIR OIL.
We have killed countless thousands of innocent Iraqis in our attempt to take control of their country and its resources.
China is also after raw materials from the Third World countries. But look at the way China goes about it. Today in Africa China is building roads, dams, airports, hospitals, schools and other infrastructure. All this while the US is busy killing and bombing and threatening more of the same against Iran.
In Russia today..Putin is certainly no Stalin. Putin is one of the most popular leaders in Russian history. He certainly is a wiser and infinitely more intelligent man than Bush. Just look at his approval rating among the Russian people. Today, Russia’s oil wealth is being used for the benefit of the Russian people. Can Americans say the same about Chevron, Mobil, Shell etc…just look at their obscene profit margins.
Before Americans get too smug about how great we are compared to Russia and China we should look at some recent history. Russia is not now under Ivan the Terrible and China doesn’t have Emperors today. America has a tin horn, John Wayne wannabe, lying coward for a president.
Sorry, but the writer of this column..J R Nyquist..should tell the American people some history they don’t know. We are NOT NOW the greatest people on Earth and America seems to have lost its soul somewhere in the past 7 years…think Abu Graib…and Guantanamo.

You forgot about how the U.S. supported a military dictatorship over democracy in Greece in the late 60’s and early 70’s.